Salt and corrosion

I was thinking of doing a daily entry in November, just like I used to back in the good old days, and now here we are in the second week and I haven't even done my monthly book entry. So much for that idea.

Anyway: a general catch-up.

How long has it been since I did a proper entry? I have an outraged note that I saw Christmas decorations in the shops back in September. It seems a bit late to complain about that now.

In October, Woolworths was doing a giveaway of tat with groceries, only it wasn't tat at all: it was packets of seeds in little biodegradable pots. I ended up with little pots of chamomile, kale and tomatoes, and they are all doing very well. The tomato plants are actually doing better than the special organic tomato seeds I planted around the same time.

I have always wanted to make a gingerbread house, and yesterday I found a box of gingerbread house cutters, all you could ever need for walls and windows and a roof. And they all fit inside an A5-sized box, so it's not going to be a huge house. More of a gingerbread cottage, which is just the right size eating for a small household.

October books read

October was an odd reading month. I started and stopped several books and couldn't settle into them. The two I did finish I didn't really enjoy, and now I am marooned slowly reading something that I want to like more than I do.

* A Pocketful of Crows - Joanne M. Harris (2017) ★ ★
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* The Blue Salt Road - Joanne M. Harris (2018) ★ ★
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I went out for lunch one day this week with my mother, her friend Colleen and Colleen's daughter. Colleen told us a story about an elderly couple she used to know who used to have one pair of false teeth between them. "So they'd go out to a café and one would have a bite then they'd take the teeth out and hand them over to the other one." The waitress handing our menus out snorted with laughter.

August books read

* Our House - Louise Candlish (2018) ★ ★ ★
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* Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes Through Darkness and Light - Caroline Eden (2018) ★ ★ ★
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* Rex v. Edith Thompson: A Tale of Two Murders - Laura Thompson (2018) ★ ★
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* Crooked House - Agatha Christie (1949) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Doctor's Wife is Dead - Andrew Tierney (2017) ★ ★ ★
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* The Double Clue - Agatha Christie (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
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My mother said to me, "You like small things, look what I found in the park," and handed me a tiny R2-D2 on a plinth. He now lives on my Shelf of Small Found Things with a tiny jar of Vegemite and a Lego man with brick head.



Weekly knitting photo
( 16% complete, or just over one panel )

June books read

* The Catalyst Killing - Hans Olav Lahlum (2012) (trans. Kari Dickson, 2015) ★ ★
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* My Sister, the Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite (2018) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* Himself - Jess Kidd (2016) ★ ★ ★
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And that's the end of my daily posts in June. I might try for every second day in July. We'll see how my busy week next week pans out.

Have a look at this Lindt Bugs and Bees packet. The bee, I recognise; so too the ladybird. But what is the brown and gold striped beetle? It's not native to Australia.

I was up late the other night, having a cup of camomile tea before bed, with only the kitchen light on and everything else dark. And there was... scuffling in the magnolia tree outside, something crashing through the internal branches. Loud enough for me to notice, and for Alistair to raise his head. I went out to look, peering up the tree in the dark. The scuffling stopped. I went back in. The scuffling started again, this time with a sound that I would describe as parrot-like. I went out to look. The scuffling stopped. I went back in. The scuffling started again. I went back out. This was obviously too much for my loud little mystery friend, as I made out the shape of a large bird flying out of the magnolia and over to the giant eucalyptus several houses away. I mean, sorry, bird. But you should have been quieter.

April books read

April was a very light reading month. Rather than reading, I've been working on my backlog of cross-stitch kits in the evenings, and my choice of books has been so dull I barely manage one chapter at bedtime. Let's hope May is more interesting.

* The Secrets of the Wild Wood - Tonke Dragt (1965) (trans. Laura Watkinson, 2015) ★ ★ ★
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* Three Towers in Tuscany - Malcolm Saville (1963) ★ ★
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A story.

I would have been eight or nine. I was at home with my grandmother on the farm. Mid-afternoon, so it must have been the weekend or school holidays. My grandmother was cooking: she had some scones in the oven and was now chopping vegetables to make a casserole. I was... I don't know, just mooching about.

We heard a car. The house was right in the middle of the farm, accessed via a long gravel track, so we didn't get people passing by. If a car came, it meant to be there. We headed outside to see who it was.

The car pulled up on the lawn outside the house and a well-dressed older lady stepped out. She looked familiar, but I couldn't think why. She knew me, though. "Hello, Alicia!" she said in the poshest, plummiest voice I'd ever heard, which was also familiar. "And Jean, hello!"

My grandmother knew who the mystery lady was. She greeted her and asked how she was. Mystery Lady was well, apparently. She was on her way home from visiting someone and realised she was about to pass our gate. "And I thought, I'll just pop in and see how Pauline is... but I suppose she's at work?"

My mother was at work, but no matter, said my grandmother, inviting Mystery Lady in for a cup of tea and a fresh scone. Mystery Lady was delighted. She had tea, she had scones. She realised that my grandmother was in the middle of cooking, so she washed her hands and grabbed a knife and the two of them chopped vegetables and chatted for over an hour. She knew all about us and once she'd heard our news, she told us all about the holiday she and Jim had just been on. They had another cup of tea, then my grandmother wrapped up a few scones for her to take home for Jim. We walked back out to the car with her and waved her off. What a nice mystery lady she was.

As we stood there, watching her car head back to the road, I finally asked my grandmother what I'd wanted to know ever since the car pulled up. "Who was that?"

And my grandmother, still smiling and waving, said: "I have no idea."

( The boring conclusion )

March books read

* Lies Sleeping - Ben Aaronovitch (2018) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup - John Carreyrou (2018) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Song of Seven - Tonke Dragt (1967) (trans. Laura Watkinson, 2016) ★ ★ ★
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* The Storm Keeper's Island - Catherine Doyle (2018) ★ ★ ★
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* There's Someone Inside Your House - Stephanie Perkins (2017) ★ ★
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* The Letter to the King - Tonke Dragt (1962) (trans. Laura Watkinson, 2015) ★ ★ ★ ★
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January books read

* Managing to Change the World: The Nonprofit Manager's Guide to Getting Results - Alison Green & Jerry Hauser (2012) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Last Council (Amulet #4) - Kazu Kibuishi (2011) ★ ★ ★
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* Thin Air - Michelle Paver (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* Hilda and the Troll - Luke Pearson (2010) ★ ★ ★ ★
* Hilda and the Midnight Giant - Luke Pearson (2011) ★ ★ ★
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* Hilda and the Bird Parade - Luke Pearson (2013) ★ ★ ★ ★
* Hilda and the Black Hound - Luke Pearson (2014) ★ ★ ★ ★
* Hilda and the Stone Forest - Luke Pearson (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
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Just for the record: Australia's political war drums have started again. Could we be looking at our seventh Prime Minister since 2010? It won't happen before February (Parliament has shut down for summer), so we've got all of January to watch this mess unfold. The May election to end this nonsense can't come soon enough.

It is that time of year again, f-list. Time for my annual Barbara Cartland book! This year: the nonsensical tale of a Marquis and his... very unusual wife.

A Very Unusual Wife: The watch list
Orphaned heroine with unusual name: Not orphaned - in possession of two parents and three siblings, in fact - but cursed with the name Elmina (her siblings are Mirabel, Deirdre and Desmond, which are at least actual names).
Who — speaks with — Shatner-esque pauses: Yes, of course. "Can I do — that?" Also afflicted with this problem is Lady Sapphire Carstairs, her rival in love: "Who is this — fortunate girl who is to marry the most — attractive man in — the whole world?"
Who lives with her titled uncle: No, it's her father, the Earl of Warnborough, which is not pronounced how you think it is.
And his unsympathetic wife: In this case, her mother, whose worst fault seems to be an old-fashioned taste in dresses.
Absurdly named hero with aristocratic title: Alston, the Marquis of Falcon, who is "the most consequential as well as the most exciting man in the entire neighbourhood".
Female friends of heroine: Two sisters, who seem all right, and one male friend/groom/karate teacher, Chang.
Male friends of hero who seem more pleasant than he does: The Marquis isn't too bad, as these chaps go, but he does have a nice friend, Major Charles Marriott.
Hero and heroine united in shared love of a dog: No, it's horses this time, specifically an Arab mare called Shalom.
Act of vengeance by a bitter former servant: None.
Heroine requires rescue from: Being kidnapped by French horse thieves.
Duels fought: Chang and the Marquis do karate on the horse thieves.
Book ends with one of the pair recovering in bed: Elmina, after nearly being shot during the kidnapping.
What the heroine believes the hero's lips give her when they kiss at the end: As the sun rose, they were part of it and its burning glory swept through them.
Diamond-studded snuff boxes mentioned: None.
Heroine inwardly approves of the hero's champagne-coloured pantaloons: No, it's white riding breeches this time. Also: his nightshirt: "... with the frills round his silk nightshirt high against his neck almost like a cravat and the red of his robe accentuated by the darkness of his hair, he looked, she thought, almost as if he had stepped out of a picture."
Sample stilted dialogue:
"I hope you will enjoy this champagne, Falcon. It's a brand that was recommended to me years ago by King George when he was on the throne."
"He was certainly reputed to be a great connoisseur of wine," the Marquis said conversationally.

(Note that the Marquis spends a lot of his chapters thinking about how boring conversations at Queen Victoria's court are, and, I mean, if that's an example of his own conversation, he's not helping the problem.)

( This book, f-list )

It is HOT, f-list. I'm not ready for hot yet.

Working full-time has really cut into my reading time, hmph.

October books read

* Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik (2018) ★ ★ ★ ★;
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* The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton (2018) ★ ★ ★
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Very flat. Putting together an application for a job as a Finance Manager with a not-for-profit, very much my wheelhouse, but what's the point? Really. Possibly feeling like this because I heard about a friend, or rather, the daughter of one of my mother's friends, but someone about my age who I have known for a long time. Anyway, she was a lawyer last I heard, but she has left law to become a bespoke woodworker, making rough-hewn tables and such. (I looked at her website; she's really good.) Perhaps I should become a bespoke woodworker.

I don't really like splinters though.

August book read

* The Silk Roads: A New History of the World - Peter Frankopan (2015) ★ ★ ★ ★
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While I was waiting for my mother at the bank the other day, an old lady came in. The bank has a sort of greeter, an employee who lurks near the entrance to direct customers to the right counter. She asked the old lady how she could help. The old lady said, "I heard on the radio that there won't be any cash, it's going to be a cashless society, and I just wanted to know how I would know how much money was in my bank account if there's no cash."

The greeter said, "Well, you can always check your bank balance on our app on your phone."

"Oh, I don't have a phone, dear."

"Oh, well," said the greeter, "you can always pop in here to use the app on one of our terminals."

"Oh. Right." The old lady didn't seem convinced. "Oh, well, thank you." She shuffled out.

Of course, the greeter could have just told her the cashless society is quite a long way off yet, couldn't she? I think that would have reassured the old lady more.

Also, I saw a quiz show yesterday, with a cheerful teenage girl as the contestant. Question: What is added to a BLT to make a BLAT?

"An A," she said, and everyone had a good laugh. The host pressed her for an actual answer. She looked puzzled. "An A." She looked even more puzzled when the answer was revealed to be avocado. I hope someone explained it to her later.

May books read

Only two books this month. Only two books completed, that is. I hit a bad run of ones that I didn't finish.

* Plants: From Roots to Riches - Kathy Willis & Carolyn Fry (2015) ★ ★ ★
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* The Lie Tree - Frances Hardinge (2015) ★ ★ ★
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